


Beta and the Beast

by scxlias



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (only the death of bad guys don't worry), Beauty and the Beast AU, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Warning: Kate Argent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 21:30:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7700410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scxlias/pseuds/scxlias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek follows his sisters into the woods when he doesn't hear from them after a week. </p>
<p>He doesn't know what he was expecting, but ending up in the dungeon of a castle belonging to a beast was definitely not in the plan.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <em>The Beauty and the Beast AU nobody asked for.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Beta and the Beast

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sterek Summer Spectacular 2016!
> 
>  
> 
> [Vote for team EMMOA here!](http://www.poll-maker.com/poll774626x7A844CF2-31)

Derek doesn’t know what he expects to find when he goes after Laura. 

She and Cora had left a week earlier on a trip that should’ve only taken a couple days and Derek hasn’t heard from them since. He was beginning to worry. Laura always let him know when she and Cora arrived safely. She always wrote, always told him they were okay. Ever since the fire that had claimed the rest of their family and driven their uncle mad, they made a point to assure each other that they were okay. 

And Laura hasn’t written. 

So Derek leaves, goes out to follow the trail deep into the woods, because he’s going to make sure his sisters are safe if it’s the last thing he does. It’s not like he’ll be missing out on much in town anyway. Just Kate Argent and Jennifer Blake and Kate’s inability to take no for an answer. Yeah, Derek’s not all that unhappy to leave for a few days, even if the reason isn’t a good one. 

He loses his sisters’ scent halfway through the woods, and his stomach sinks, fearing the worst, until he realizes he can’t smell them because their scents are almost entirely covered by the smell of actual wolves. 

So he follows that instead. 

It takes him deeper into the woods, away from the footpath, figuring out along the way that his sisters must’ve been attacked by a pack of wolves while they traveled. He follows the scent until he hits an enormous metal gate, and he can smell his sisters again, even though their scents are muted by the thick stone walls of the castle looming over him. Faint, but still there. He’s too excited to have found them to notice the other scents around him, but he’ll deal with that later. 

He gets a running start and vaults himself over the gate, springing to his feet and dusting snow from his jacket before moving to pry open the heavy wooden door. 

Everything inside is stuffy and covered in a thin layer of dust. 

He realizes then that Laura and Cora are not on this level of the castle. 

Their scents are coming from somewhere below him.

The dungeons. 

Derek breaks into a run and doesn’t stop until he hurtles down a flight of stairs and skids to a halt in front of a small cell, his sisters huddled together under their travelling cloaks inside. Derek growls. Laura looks up, her eyes widening, and Derek thinks she’s going to gasp in disbelief and ask how he found them.

She flashes red eyes at him instead and says, “What in the hell are you doing here, Derek? You have to leave before he comes back!”

Derek balks. “What? What do you mean? I have to get you out!”

Laura shakes her head and Cora peers up at him silently, her eyes flashing golden in her distress. “No,” Laura argues, her power evident in her voice. “This thing, Der, it’s like us but it’s wrong and it’s stronger than all of us combined. The bars won’t bend. They’re made with mountain ash or something. I don’t know, just, you have to get out of here!”

“He’s not going anywhere.”

Derek jumps at the new voice. He hadn’t heard anyone else approach, but, sure enough, when he turns around there’s a hulking monster, a  _ beast, _ blocking the hallway Derek had come down. The thing stands almost two feet taller than Derek, monstrous fangs protruding from its mouth, with massive curved claws the size of Derek’s fingers, and strange eyes that seem to be staring into Derek’s soul, honing in on all the fear he feels in that moment. 

The thing’s voice is even stranger though, because it doesn’t fit the beast  _ at all. _ Its voice is too high, too smooth, too  _ normal _ to be coming from this creature. 

But, Derek has more important things to worry about than the way this thing’s voice sounds.

The Beast blocks Derek’s only way out, but he thinks he might be able to duck through the gap at its right side, make a run for it. It’s a desperate plan, but it’s all he’s got. 

And then something else appears. 

A jet black wolf, easily twice the size it should be, appears at the Beast’s side, taking up the rest of the space, and leaving Derek no way to escape. The wolf paces across the short width of the hall, sticking close to the Beast’s legs, baring razor sharp teeth. Its eyes burn fiery red, just like Laura’s. 

This wolf is a were, just like him and his sisters, but Derek can’t see any trace of a human in the creature in front of him. The Beast must’ve done something to the wolf, because this isn’t how their kind is supposed to be, and that thought terrifies Derek. He’s jerked out of his grim thoughts when the Beast speaks again. 

“None of you are going anywhere. You think you can break into my castle? Steal from me? Gawk at me and the others in our home and get away with it? And  _ you _ ,” it rounds on Derek, and he almost flinches, but he’s glad that the attention is away from his sisters now, “trying to come and save them, are you? Stupid. You can’t save them. I’m the only one who can set them free, and I have no reason to do so.”

Laura scoffs. “We didn’t come to gawk. We were being chased. Attacked. We were only seeking safety!”

Derek blurts out his next words without thinking, his only thoughts about protecting his sisters—his only family, his only pack left. 

“Take me instead.”

“What?”

“Derek, no! Absolutely not!” Laura shouts, leaping to her feet.

“Silence, girl!” Derek shuts his eyes when the Beast shouts, his bellow echoing in the narrow stone hall. “What makes you so worthwhile, hm? Why are you worth both of them?”

Derek takes a deep breath and clasps both hands behind his back to hide the fact that they’re shaking. “They’ll fight you for every inch. I won’t. Anything you want, I’ll do it. Anything at all, just… please. Let my sisters go. I beg of you. Set them free. I’ll stay behind with you.” He inhales deeply again, and as he lets it out, he lets his eyes flash. “I know you know of my kind. I can be an asset. Please. Let my sisters go, and you can have me instead.”

“Derek, this is insane! You’re not staying here with that thing, you don’t know what it’ll do to you. I’m not leaving you behind like this,” Laura cries, her voice edging on desperate. 

Derek doesn’t break eye contact with the Beast, keeping track of the wolf in between them as well. “Yes, you are leaving me, Laura. You take Cora and you go home. Keep inventing, keep teaching her. I’ll be fine.”

The Beast looks Derek over once then looks down at the wolf. The wolf seems to shake its head, but the Beast ignores it. “Your life for theirs, then? I believe we have a deal. He will see the girls out,” the Beast says, gesturing at the wolf. He breezes by Derek, unlatching the the cell door and yanking Laura and Cora out. They both stumble a little and the wolf catches and steadies them against its broad flank. It’s the last thing Derek sees before he’s being shoved into the cell, the bars clanging shut after him like an ominous knell. “Someone will be down to deal with you later. Your sisters will be sent back to the town.”

Then the Beast is gone, and Derek is alone in a cold stone cell, just waiting. 

He waits for what must be a few hours—it’s hard to gauge time in his sunless, dank cell—before the enormous wolf returns, a tray in its mouth. It pushes the tray through a slot in the bottom of the door with its nose and sits back on its haunches, waiting. 

Derek turns away from the food. 

The wolf growls. 

Derek doesn’t respond. 

The growling gets louder.

Derek boldly glares at the wolf. 

It snaps its jaws and bares its fangs and slaps its paw down in the direction of the tray. 

Derek gets the message and eats a few bites of the bread and stew. 

It’s surprisingly good, not what he’d expect to be given as a prisoner. But he still can’t stomach much and shoves the tray back through the slot. The wolf huffs indignantly, but it still picks up the tray and leaves back the way it came. 

And so things settle into a routine.

The wolf comes twice a day and makes sure Derek eats something, then it takes the tray and leaves. 

Two days in, Derek starts tallying up the days on the wall with his claws. 

A day later, the wolf brings a blanket in between meals.

Three days after that, Derek wakes up from an afternoon nap to a tray, but no wolf, and an open door. 

He scarfs down some food before standing, pushing the door a little farther open, and stepping cautiously out of the cell. His senses tell him the wolf was here recently, but is no longer around and Derek takes it as an opportunity to look around. 

He’s not stupid enough to try to escape. 

If he tries and fails, he has no idea what the Beast will do to him; and if he tries and succeeds, there’s nothing keeping the Beast from sending his wolf after Derek and his sisters. 

The reward is not worth the risk.

Guaranteeing his sisters’ safety is the most important thing in the world to him, his own fate be damned.

But there’s nothing to say he can’t at least take a look at the rest of the place. They must have left his cell door open for a reason.

Right?

So Derek makes his way up a long spiral staircase, making sure to keep his steps quiet, and finds his way to the main rooms of the castle by scent. He follows his nose to where they’re most concentrated. 

As Derek nears the doors to what he assumes must be a common room, he begins to hear voices and that stops him in his tracks. 

There are only three heartbeats and yet, there are at least six distinctive voices he’s heard so far. 

_ What the hell is going on in this place? What magic has this monster done? _ Derek wonders, creeping towards the door. 

Inside, he sees the Beast and his wolf, the animal curled up in front of the fireplace with what looks like a coyote. A clock sits on the table next to a three pronged candelabra, a teapot, and a chipped teacup. 

The Beast is staring at its wolf and its wolf’s coyote, the fire crackling behind the animals casting an eerie glow on the room.

“I just don’t know what to do with him,” the Beast grumbles, and it sounds like it’s been at this conversation for a while, but Derek cannot tell who it could possibly be talking to.

A woman’s voice speaks then, though there’s no woman to be seen. “Well keeping the poor guy locked in the dungeons like a criminal isn’t going to do much good, Stiles.”

Derek almost screams when he realizes it’s the  _ clock _ that had just spoken. 

He’s going crazy, completely batshit insane, he has to be. This is an auditory hallucination and he should just go back to his cell before he starts hearing his sisters and tries something stupid. It might sound like an exaggeration, but the only other option is admit he heard an inanimate object speak.

And then the teacup fucking moves. 

What the hell.

The teacup moves and then  _ it speaks too _ . 

“Let us at least show him around or something. I mean he traded places with his sisters, right? I know if I did something like that for Scott, I’d never risk trying to run.” 

The Beast’s wolf lifts its head then and, because of course this is Derek’s life, the wolf speaks too. “You’re not ever gonna have to do that, okay, Liam? Never,” he says, very seriously. 

The coyote picks her head up from where it was resting on top of the wolf. “Scotty, he’s just giving a hypothetical. Relax.”

The wolf, Scott, does relax, and Liam the teacup goes on. “So, what’s the harm in letting him out? Kira and I will show him around. He probably won’t drop me and chip me, at least,” he says, and if it were possible, Derek would say he looks pointedly at the Beast. 

The candelabra moves then, its two arms moving around the main stem as it practically nods in agreement. “He can take me for light, but maybe it should be Scott, instead of Liam? I mean Scott has been the one bringing him food.”

Scott huffs out a sound that’s probably supposed to be a laugh. “That’s cause I’m the only one who can, besides Malia, and she didn’t want to.”

“Oh, and whatever your coyote wants, she gets, doesn’t she?” Liam taunts and Derek thinks he’s losing his mind. 

These are animals and inanimate objects. They’re not talking because they can’t. That’s impossible.

The clock chimes then, and says, “Well, right on time. Derek, sweetie, come inside and shut the door, won’t you? It’s a little drafty.” 

“Lydia, what the hell have you done?” the Beast all but roars.

The wolf and the coyote curl together tighter, ears flattened against their skulls, and the teacup hides behind the teapot. 

“You do not get to speak to anyone that way, Stiles!” the teapot scolds as Derek creeps in. She huffs exasperatedly. “We all decided it would be best if you didn’t keep him locked away. It’s not right. You can’t treat people this way.”

“We don’t know if he’s a threat,” the Beast, Stiles, counters.

“Even if he is,” Scott chimes in, barely moving from where he’s tangled up with his coyote, “I’m an alpha, and he’s a werewolf. Worst comes to worst, I can do something.”

“He’s not wrong,” Derek says quietly. “If he gave me an order, I couldn’t refuse.” 

All eyes turn to Derek, who shrinks under the scrutiny. 

That’s when he notices that the objects that had been speaking all have faces. 

“Holy shit,” he mutters, stumbling back a step.

Suddenly the enormous wolf and his equally large coyote are at his sides, holding him upright, watching him with glowing red and blue eyes respectively. They guide him to a seat, and he stares for a moment, before noticing that Stiles the Beast is staring right back at him. 

He crosses his arms over his chest and doesn’t back down. 

“I’ll be in my chambers,” the Beast says, still glaring, and then he sweeps out of the room, the door slamming behind him. 

“Don’t worry about him, dear. He’s just not good with strangers,” the teapot says as the door settles back into place. 

Derek puts his head in his hands. “None of you can talk. I’m losing my mind. This isn’t real.”

Scott’s huge black paw lands on his knee, and Derek jumps. “You’re not crazy. We’re very real. Malia and I are just like you, even. Well, she’s a coyote, but same difference. We’re just shapeshifters stuck in our full shifts. It’s a part of our curse.” 

“Curse?” Derek repeats, looking up.

“Curse, Derek. I’m sure you know of magic, being a shifter and all,” Lydia the clock says. 

“You’re all cursed.” Derek doesn’t say it like a question.

Scott takes his paw away then. “Mine and Liam’s father,” he begins, looking down and away, like he’s ashamed. “King John, Stiles’ father, ran this land before Stiles did. Our father was his closest advisor. When Stiles took over after his father died, he wanted our father replaced. Our father wasn’t doing his job as he should have. He was becoming power hungry. So Stiles asked Lydia and I to take our father’s place as his advisors.

“When our father heard about this, he was furious. He confronted Stiles, screamed at him, and then came after Lydia and me, and he tried to go after Malia too. Stiles banished him, but we weren’t fast enough. Before anyone could get to him after Stiles decreed his exile, he placed a curse on us. He took a rose from a bouquet meant for our mother, and he tied our lives to it. Cursed us to be nothing more than what he thought of us. He trapped me and Malia in our shifts and trapped the others in things: Lydia in the clock; Kira in the candelabra; our mother, Melissa, in the teapot; and my brother, Liam, in the teacup. And Stiles… he made Stiles what he is now. Said he’d made Stiles truly unlovable.” Scott shakes his head and huffs, resting his head on top of Malia’s. 

“What’s the rose got to do with it?” Derek asks quietly. 

Lydia crosses her arms over her chest, or does what Derek assumes is the equivalent of that on a clock, the long handles that were at her sides twining together in front of her . “The only way to break the curse is for Stiles to fall in love and receive it in return. True love’s kiss and all that. Every curse can be broken. Scott’s father created this one specifically because he figured it was impossible. He made Stiles what he deemed unlovable, and then made the cure about love.”

Kira picks up where she left off. “The rose is suspended, sort of. It doesn’t wilt like a normal one does. But it does lose its petals really slowly. We have until they’re all gone. Stiles was cursed when we were seventeen. The rose is meant to live for seven years after that. When the rose dies, so do we.”

Derek doesn’t say anything for a moment, soaking in the information he’d just been given. “How long?” he asks, voice catching. “How long ago were you all cursed?”

“The rose is going to die within the next year,” Melissa answers gravely. “We have about eight months.” 

~*~

They move Derek to a room that night, a real room with a bed that’s not just a pile of straw and candles for light and a fire for warmth. Derek settles into bed, exhausted from being unable to sleep comfortably on the hard dungeon floor, and is asleep almost immediately. 

When he wakes up, Scott and Malia are curled up on a large pillow by the foot of Derek’s bed, both out cold. Derek can tell from their heartbeats and steady breathing. 

So he keeps quiet as he gets up, changing into the clothing that someone had left on a chair by the bed for him. As quiet as he is though, the two are still shaking themselves out and stretching as Derek is just finishing dressing. 

Scott yawns, a high pitched whine escaping his throat, and scratches his ear with a back paw. Malia laughs and playfully swipes at Scott before jumping towards Derek excitedly. “Come on,” she says, pawing at the door. “Downstairs. Breakfast. Let’s go, Derek. You’ve got real hands with opposable thumbs. You can cook, and I know if you can’t burn water, you’re already a better cook than Stiles. Come on, please! The other’s don’t have to eat ‘cause they’re just things now, but I’m starving,” she whines, blue eyes wide and pathetic.

Derek sighs, but still nods and opens the door. If he has to stay here, he might as well do something useful. He’ll go down to the kitchens, see what meat he can feed Scott and Malia, scrounge up something for himself, and set out breakfast for Stiles. 

As they walk down to the kitchen, it occurs to Derek that if Stiles is the only one who cooks in the castle, then he is the one who made sure Derek was fed the whole week before. Stiles had gone through the effort of making real food for Derek while he was a prisoner. 

Derek decides it’s too early to try to read into that. 

He feeds Scott and Malia first, then looks around until he finds enough to throw together breakfast for himself and Stiles, a little confused by the large quantity of eggplants they have in the kitchen. He’s just sitting down to eat when the Beast walks in, fur sticking out in all directions.

“I made breakfast,” Derek says immediately. 

Stiles jumps, whacking his elbow on the counter. Derek freezes, wondering if he’ll be upset at Derek for surprising him, but instead, he just nods, and grunts out a thanks, before sitting down to eat himself. 

He thanks Derek again when he’s done, and leaves without another word.

Derek comes back and fixes lunch and dinner as well, and Stiles responds much the same every time. 

And so they settle into a routine. 

Derek makes meals and they eat in awkward silence. 

Stiles avoids him for the rest of the day. 

(Derek never once sees him, but his other senses tell him Stiles watches sometimes, keeps an eye on Derek and whoever he’s with).

Sleep, repeat. 

On the second day, Lydia finds him and they spend the day in the library. Apparently Scott had mentioned to Stiles that Derek likes to read. 

The third day, Liam and Scott take Derek through the courtyards, and tell him all the stories they can think of of the castle when it was always bustling with activity. Before the curse. 

The fourth day, Derek and Malia go strolling through a graveyard on the castle grounds, and Malia explains to him in a small voice that the parents who raised her died when she was young, and that Melissa had raised her after, even though she was technically King John’s ward. He doesn’t ask what happened, knows better than to ask questions like that, and he doesn’t complain when they end simply strolling around the cemetery for most of the day in total silence.

The fifth day, Melissa, Scott and Liam’s mother, spends the whole day with Derek, sitting in a quiet corner of the library. They sit in silence for long stretches broken occasionally by Melissa as she alternates between reading a book and telling Derek stories of when her sons and Stiles were young children.

The sixth day, Malia and Scott go out hunting again. 

The sixth day, they don’t come back when they’re supposed to. 

The seventh day, (it’s barely the seventh day, only a few hours in, and they’re all waiting up anxiously, it’s been too long) Malia limps into the castle foyer, half dragging Scott in with her.

She drops an arrow from between her teeth before lowering Scott to the ground. “Argents. The woman. Kate. They surprised us when we were really far out, her and her cronie. Jennifer. They didn’t get me bad, I’m almost healed, but they got Scott. I got him here as fast as I could but he’s not healing and I don’t know why,” Malia pants out, her voice strained. If she could cry, Derek thinks she would be. He can tell how much Scott means to all of them, especially Stiles.

He can also tell that Scott has wolfsbane poisoning. 

“I know,” Derek whispers, and Malia’s attention snaps to him. 

“Fix. Him,” she growls. 

Derek nods and starts ordering the others around, Malia and Stiles working together to get Scott to a bed while the others go to gather some things Derek asks for. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Stiles grunts as he hefts Scott’s body onto the bed in what was his room when he was human. 

Derek beckons Kira forward and waits for her permission before picking her up and telling her to burn as hot as she can. 

“Wolfsbane poisoning. The arrow reeked of it and he’s bleeding black. I’ve seen this before. Happened to my little sister once. You have to burn the poison out.” Derek takes a deep breath and ignores Kira’s gasp. “Stiles, I need you to hold him down. This is going to hurt him a lot, and I’m sorry, but it’ll save his life. Malia, you too.” 

“If he dies,” Stiles starts.

Derek shakes his head. “He won’t. I’m sorry about this though,” he says, and then he’s holding Kira’s flames closer to Scott’s wounds and Scott is writhing on the bed. 

Stiles has to press all of his weight onto his best friend to keep him still. As he wiggles helplessly, Scott lets out a gut-wrenching sounds somewhere halfway between a howl and a scream and Stiles and Derek both flinch.

Derek has to burn the wolfsbane for longer than he should have to, but eventually, he pulls away, setting Kira down carefully next to Lydia, Melissa, and Liam. 

He picks up the bandages that Lydia brought him, and wraps Scott’s injuries as best he can (they’re on his ribcage, and Scott is heavy, dead weight in his unconsciousness).

As he finishes, Derek looks to Stiles with a small smile on his face. “He’ll be okay. I promise you. Malia got him back before it reached his heart. He’s gonna be in pain for a while, but he’ll live. I’ll watch over him,” he offers as Malia curls up and falls asleep, as close to Scott as she can possibly get. 

Stiles nods. “I’ll come check on him in a while.”

Derek nods his understanding, and sinks into a chair next to the bed, gently petting Scott’s head. 

He’s still got his fingers on Scott’s fur when Stiles returns hours later.

“He’s got a girlfriend, you know,” Stiles says, voice serious.

Derek jerks his hand away. “No I know. I don’t even… I mean I do like… But I wasn’t… not with him. I just… we’re tactile creatures. Werewolves. Touch helps with lots of things.”

Stiles laughs, an odd sound, half animal, half human, and Derek cocks an eyebrow. “I’m just kidding. I know. And plus. Lia wouldn’t care. You just saved his life.”

“I just held Kira’s flames to his wounds. Kira really did all the work.”

“Derek, accept my thanks. Scott might as well be my brother. He’s been my best friend since I understood the concept, and you just saved his life. None of us would’ve known what to do to help him. You did. Kira’s flames would’ve been useless without your guidance,” Stiles says firmly as he drags a chair to the other side of Scott’s bed and takes a seat. 

Derek shrugs and lets his hand fall back into Scott’s fur, pulling some of Scott’s pain away as he pets him gently. “When my sisters and I were younger, we wandered too far into the woods on our own. I stumbled into a tripwire, and my younger sister caught an arrow in her arm. One coated with wolfsbane, same as the one that did this to Scott. My mother taught us all how to treat wolfsbane wounds that day. I’m surprised that Scott and Malia don’t know how.”

“Malia grew up thinking she was human. Scott was bitten and abandoned by his alpha. He gained his power through his force of will,” Stiles explains quietly, his eyes never leaving Scott’s body. “Liam is a wolf as well, though he isn’t trapped in his shift like Malia and Scott are.”

There is a long stretch of silence, Derek’s veins running black as he takes Scott’s pain a little bit at a time, before Stiles speaks again.

“You spoke of your mother. You have other family? What will they think of what’s become of you?”

Derek tenses, his fingers curling in Scott’s fur for a moment. “I have no family besides my sisters.”

“But you just said-”

“Yes, I spoke of my mother, but that was years ago. Before the fire.”

“The fire?”

Derek wishes there was a way for him to deny the whimper that escapes him. “The fire. The one that killed all of my family save me and my sisters and our uncle, who was driven mad by his injuries. Laura and Cora are alone now, only knowing that I was imprisoned by a monster as a wolf dragged them back to town.”

He can’t keep the anger and hurt from his voice. As kind as the inhabitants of this castle have been to him, and as much as he’s finding he enjoys their company, he can’t deny the truth. 

He is their prisoner, nothing more, nothing less. 

“You offered to take their place,” Stiles says plainly. “If you’d like to send a letter to them to let them know you’re alright, I’ll make sure they get it.”

“If it’s all the same to you, Prince Stiles,” Derek says, spitting the title at him, “I’d rather not give them any false hope. Laura is my alpha. A letter like that might give her hope that I might return to them. She’d do anything to make that happen, and I’d rather not risk anyone getting hurt over me.”

Stiles makes a sound that might be a laugh. Derek scowls and draws in way more of Scott’s pain than is strictly necessary. 

“Well aren’t you just a sour… person. Sour werewolf. Sourwolf!” Stiles exclaims, his features twisting in a way that makes Derek think that Stiles is very pleased with himself for coming up with that one. 

Derek is not impressed. 

He wants to leave, wants to be alone, but he doesn’t want to leave Scott’s side, not when he’s still so weak. So he curls up a little smaller in his chair and rests his chin on his knees, hoping Stiles gets the message.

Instead, he asks, “Should I have one of the others come sit with him instead? You seem exhausted.”

Derek just shakes his head and yawns. “No. None of them can take his pain. I mean, Malia could, but she’s still healing herself. I’m fine. It just takes a lot of energy to take pain.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be alright?” The concern in Stiles’ voice confuses Derek and he finally returns to what he’d wondered earlier in the week, when he realized that Stiles had been cooking real food for him while he was in the dungeons. 

Why does Stiles care so much about his prisoner?

Derek can’t fathom why Stiles is acting like this towards him. The cooking could be chalked up to it being easier for Stiles to feed him that way, but this? This is blatant concern for Derek’s well being and Derek can’t figure out why.

Nothing about this situation really makes sense. Scott’s laid out in front of him, injured by an Argent’s arrow, Stiles is being kind to him and urging him to write back to his sisters to let him know he’s okay, his sisters are miles away at home in the village…

A lot of things click together all at once. 

Derek stands abruptly. 

“I need a piece of parchment and something to write with, right now,” he demands, and Stiles looks at him in confusion, but he complies anyway. 

“What’s all this about? I meant it when I said to write to your sisters, but I didn’t mean immediately. A few minutes isn’t going to make it life or death, Sourwolf,” Stiles says, and he sounds like he’s joking, but Derek is deadly serious. 

“In this case it might, Your Highness,” Derek bites out tersely, already retreating into his head in a way that really isn’t good. He’s got the letter almost entirely written by the time Derek realizes that Stiles is calling his name. 

“Derek! Derek, what the hell do you mean? Derek come on, answer me, what’s going on?” Stiles is all but begging, crouched so that he’s on the same level as Derek as he scribbles out the letter furiously. 

Derek looks up only when it’s done and looks to Stiles, his eyes bright blue. “This needs to get to my sisters. Immediately.” 

“I’ll send a raven as soon as I can. Now tell me what’s going on.” Stiles orders. Derek almost flinches at the power behind his voice.

He takes a deep breath and steels himself for what he’s about to say. 

“Years ago, I courted a woman. I was young and incredibly stupid and I thought I was in love. But she was an Argent. And my family are wolves. She told me she was different, and I believed her and I kept her a secret. I snuck her around in the woods, in my home. We… She was older. And I thought I was lucky that she wanted me. I did everything she asked of me, anything, even when I didn’t want to, and then she burned my family alive when I started to try to tell her when I was uncomfortable with what she was doing to me. And now she’s… she’s obsessed with trying to get me back under thumb.

“This, what she’s doing now… coming out this far into the woods? There is no way it was an accident. When they didn’t hear from me, Laura and Cora likely asked around to learn more about you, and Kate and her partner, Jennifer, found out. They probably think you’re a monster worse than they are, and that if they can come ‘rescue’ me from you, that I’ll feel indebted to them. She’s trying to gain some form of control over me again.” 

Stiles is staring at him now, and Derek wishes the floor would just open and swallow him whole. He’s never told anyone just exactly how horrific Kate is, stopped trying after she murdered his family and no one believed him when he said she did it. 

And now he’s telling the man who’s holding him captive, because for some strange reason, he trusts Stiles. He doesn’t want to think about why right now. 

Stiles doesn’t push for any more specifics on Kate, which Derek is immensely grateful for. Just talking about her this much has him feeling shaky. He hates her with every fiber of his being. 

“So why hurt Scott? Was he just in her way while she was scouting around the castle?” Stiles asks.

Derek shakes his head. 

“No. She’s trying to lower your defenses. Its why she was packing wolfsbane. She must’ve heard about Scott. She’s going to try to pick off Malia and Scott. It leaves you weaker. Takes away your pack.” Derek shakes his head, scrubbing a hand over his face. “She’s… she’s desperate enough to get me back that she’ll kill you all to do it,” he whispers, ducking his head so he doesn’t have to look Stiles in the eye. 

“She’s coming after us because of you?” 

“If I’m not wrong, then yes, she is. I’d apologize, but you’re the one who locked up my sisters in the first place.” 

Stiles makes a noise in the back of his throat that Derek can’t really figure out. 

“I don’t suppose Malia dropping you off at the edge of town would help much now, would it?” 

“She’d come after you anyway. She’s lost her mind. She finds joy in other people’s pain. And she’d find some way to twist it anyway, to make it seem like she did me a favor.” 

Stiles sets his jaw, his bottom fangs jutting out in a way that has Derek stepping back a little. “We’ll send this to your sisters. They’ll tell us what they know. And we’ll get ready to defend the castle. We’re not going to make this easy on her.”

Derek balks. “Wait, we?” he asks, bewildered. “What do you mean we?”

“I mean you and me and Malia and Scott once he gets better. I know this castle and you know this woman and with whatever your sisters can tell us, we’ll have an advantage. What?” Stiles questions at the stunned look on Derek’s face. “Did you think we’d just kick you out in the snow after you saved Scott’s life?”

“I figured that you’d want to get rid of the guy bringing around the threat. Barricade the castle to keep the hunters out.”

Stiles shakes his head and huffs out a breath that comes out very loudly. “I know Scott and the others told you the story the first night they let you out. I know you know about the curse. And if you know about the curse, then you know we don’t have long left. I’m not… no one’s about to fall in love with me. So, I think, and the others will agree, that we might as well make something of it. If we can keep Kate from getting her hands on you again, even if it’s the last thing we do, it’s better than throwing you out and just waiting. We might as well put up a fight. Anyway. I’m gonna go update the others and send this into town to your sisters. Stay with Scott, will you? He likes you. If he wakes up, I don’t want him to be alone.”

Derek just nods, staring dumbly at the door even after Stiles is gone. After a little, he shakes himself and goes back to sit with Scott. 

He falls asleep with his head resting right next to Scott’s chest.

He wakes up to one of Scott’s front legs over his shoulder and red eyes watching him expectantly. 

“You saved my life,” Scott says quietly when Derek jumps a little. “We locked you in a cell and kept you here and you… you saved my life.” His voice is tinged with disbelief, eyes wide.

Derek shrugs, not moving from under Scott’s leg. God, he’d missed contact with others. He and his sisters were always tactile, always touching. He hadn’t realized how much he missed that. 

“You’ve been kind to me. And, as much as I didn’t like it, I understand why you had me locked away. You weren’t right, but I could’ve been a threat. It was protecting your pack.” Derek sighs and just sits for a moment, lost in his thoughts as reality comes crashing back in while his mind catches up to his body in being awake. “Wolfsbane poisoning is terrifying. Happened to my little sister once. You’re gonna be a little worse for wear for a few days, but if you rest up, you’ll be fine. I’ve been taking your pain as much as I can too. That should help it along.”

Scott stares at him for a moment before nudging Derek’s forehead with his nose. 

Derek grimaces and sits up, scrubbing at the wet spot Scott’s nose has left on his skin. 

Scott makes a sound that might be a laugh and rests his head on his front legs, looking up at Derek. “Thank you Derek. It means a lot that you cared enough to help me.”

Derek shrugs. “I can see how much you mean to Malia and Stiles, and.. everyone really. I know how hard it is to lose family. I didn’t want them to feel the same. And you are a good person. It was nothing.”

“It was everything,” Scott says quietly. “We’re all Stiles has left. And you saved me.” They’re quiet for a very long time before Scott heaves a sigh and rolls fully onto his side. “So how long was I unconscious?” 

Derek launches into an abbreviated version of the story he’d told to Stiles, catching Scott up to everything he’d missed. 

A short while later, Malia comes in with a tray, her eyes lighting up. Derek barely gets a chance to take it from her before she’s pouncing on the bed, curling up against Scott, the smaller coyote dwarfed by Scott’s massive wolf form. Derek gives them a moment, focusing his hearing away and turning his head so they have a little bit of privacy.

Soon though, she’s winding around his legs, smiling as well as a coyote can, and thanking Derek profusely. 

Derek sets the tray down, and he and Scott eat in relative silence, Malia still curled up next to Scott. 

And so things settle into a routine.

Derek orders Scott to stay put, they’ll need him fully healed if Kate is coming after them, and Derek stays with him, taking pain if he feels any, and making sure he’s healing right. 

Each morning, Stiles comes in with a tray for Derek and Scott, Malia trailing behind him, and they plan. 

Stiles and Malia leave to handle lunch. 

Scott tells Derek stories from when they were all children. 

Stiles and Malia return, and they plan more. 

They leave to do something about dinner, and Scott tells Derek more stories.

They return, and they plan more. 

Derek tells them everything he knows about Kate and Jennifer. 

He nearly chokes on his words far too many times, and each time, Stiles reaches over, places a large hand on his knee, or his back, or his arm, and tells him to take his time. He doesn’t have to tell them everything if he can’t, it’s alright, he’s safe with them. 

After a while, Derek finds himself leaning into the touch. 

He can’t explain why, but he feels comforted by Stiles presence, almost in the same way he feels at ease around his sisters, and the way he used to feel around the rest of his family. 

He tries not to think about it. There are more important things at hand. 

The fourth day, the raven returns with a message from Laura and Cora. 

It isn’t good news. 

“We’ve got until the end of the week,” Derek breathes, his chest feeling suddenly tight. Kate is coming for him, and there’s only a chance that he’ll escape her this time. She’s coming for him and she’s going to kill everyone in the castle if she has to and none of them deserve it. “Laura says that Kate has rallied any allies the Argents have nearby and they’re coming for you. She’s spun this story about you that makes you out to be a monster.” 

“So we’ve got three days to fortify the castle as much as we can,” Scott says, his voice barely louder than Derek’s.

“Laura and Cora are going to follow the hunting party out, give us as much help as they can, try to take out some of them before they get to us.” Derek reads down to the bottom of their note, doesn’t read the words meant solely for him aloud, and laughs when he gets to the bottom of the page. “Laura says they’re taking me back, no questions asked, after this is over. She also says that if there’s a hair out of place on my head when they get here, she’ll tear your throat out with her teeth.”

Stiles’ eyes widen, but he clears his throat and his voice is only a little pinched when he responds. “Fair enough. I won’t stop you from leaving. You should be with your family. Your pack.” Stiles puts a hand on Derek’s shoulder and squeezes, giving him a look that’s probably supposed to be a reassuring smile. It comes off as more of a baring of teeth, but Derek says nothing. 

The routine changes after that, everyone pitching in wherever they can to help fortify the castle against the attack. Malia and Derek go out hunting once, barely avoiding a man that must be a scout for Kate. 

The third day, a knock comes at the door, and Derek lights up, the scent of Laura and Cora and pack immediately making him feel better. 

Stiles heaves the door open and slams it shut behind them. 

He turns around and is met with Laura’s fist to his face, her eyes red and her expression venomous.

“Hey, I thought you said if he was hurt you’d be mad!” Stiles protests, one hand flying to his eye. 

Laura huffs, flexing her hand. “I said I’d kill you if he was hurt. Considering what you’ve done, this is you getting off easy.”

Stiles pouts for a second more before huffing back at her and dropping his hand. “Fair enough. As little as it means, you have my apologies. All of you. Especially Derek. I had no right to treat you such a way.”

Laura doesn’t seem satisfied, but she turns to Derek anyway, hugging him and Cora tightly. “As much as I want to draw out this reunion,” she says, her voice filled with relief. “We have to ready ourselves. They’re almost here, and they’ve got a battering ram. Be ready to fight. I love you two. Be safe.” She turns to Stiles, Scott, Malia and the others. “All of you be careful. The Argents are merciless. They will not hesitate to hurt you or worse.” 

Cora jumps and looks toward the door, eyes wide. “They’re here.”

Between one breath and the next, Cora’s in her full shift, eyes a brilliant gold. Laura follows not long after, letting go of her human form with one last squeeze of Derek’s hand. She sweeps their clothes to the side with a paw and watches as Derek slips into his wolf form.

“Well, here goes nothing,” Scott says.

Derek chuffs in response and they scatter, Scott, Laura and Malia standing nearest the door. The others are ready to help however they can, but there’s only so much they can do in the forms they’ve been trapped in. 

Its up to six of them. Four wolves, a coyote and Stiles against an army of Kate’s hunters. It’s not good odds, but it’s the best they’ve got. 

They all flinch when they hear the battering ram against the door the first time. 

It doesn’t hold for nearly as long as it should. 

Laura has to scramble backwards to avoid being hit by a splintered off piece of the door. 

The first wave of hunters fall easily under Laura and Malia’s claws, a few more to Scott seconds later. And then comes the real challenge. 

Kate and Jennifer follow after that, and with them, the six men Derek knows helped Kate burn the Hale house to the ground. 

He all but freezes. 

Two men go after Scott, another two for Laura and the others break off to go after Malia and Cora. 

Kate’s eyes fall on Stiles and she grins wildly, her features taking on a look that is truly horrifying. 

“I want the beast,” Kate purrs, and Jennifer mirrors her grin, turning to Derek. 

Derek growls, and he doesn’t feel bad when he hears bones cracking between his jaws. He leaves Jennifer where she falls, following his nose when he realizes that Kate and Stiles have disappeared. He finds them two floors up, Kate forcing Stiles farther and farther up the stairs. 

Stiles is bleeding from a gash in his left shoulder. There’s an arrow stuck in his right hip. There’s a cut just under his left eye.

Kate fires off another arrow from her crossbow before abandoning the weapon, pulling a sword from a sheath at her side. 

“Come on monster. Try me,” she hisses, her voice like acid. 

Derek fights off a shudder and sneaks closer. 

Kate lunges and when Stiles dodges, it sends him crashing through the door near the top of the stairs. Suddenly they’re on a balcony, and Stiles is being backed towards the edge and he’s weak and injured and this is all because of Derek. He’s trying to protect Derek.

Derek roars, leaping forward, and lets his jaws snap shut around Kate’s leg. 

She screams, rounding on Derek with such a speed, it’s astounding, and brings her sword down. 

Derek closes his eyes and braces for the blow, but it never comes. 

When he looks up, Stiles is swaying on his feet, Kate’s sword in his grasp and another gash across his chest. He collapses a second later, the sword skittering away from him and back towards Kate. 

Her wicked grin is back then, and she advances on Stiles, picking up her sword, raising it over her head. 

Derek charges. 

Kate stumbles. 

Her sword falls.

Derek shoves her back again, harder, again, again, again…

She trips. 

She falls. 

When Derek peers over the edge, she isn’t moving.

Suddenly he’s human again, so exhausted, he didn’t even realize that he was shifting back until it was done. 

He doesn’t take the time to look into his own injuries, even though he knows some of them have wolfsbane in them. 

His only focus is Stiles. 

Stiles, Stiles, Stiles, Stiles. 

Stiles, who isn’t moving. 

He drags himself to where Stiles fell, listening for a heartbeat. He nearly stops breathing when he doesn’t hear anything at first. 

And that’s when it hits him. The reason he was starting to feel so comfortable around Stiles. The reason he was leaning into Stiles’ touches and believing him wholeheartedly when he told Derek he was safe. 

He’s falling for Stiles. 

He’d fallen for Stiles.

And Stiles isn’t moving. 

He’s barely breathing. 

Derek’s breath hitches, but he pulls the arrow out of Stiles’ leg anyway. He collapses over Stiles’ chest not long after, thoroughly exhausted and at a loss for what to do. 

“Come on,” Derek whispers, his voice breaking. “Please. Don’t… don’t die on me. Please, Stiles, come on. You can’t leave me like this, not when I’ve just realized I…” 

He trails off, blinking against a sudden bright light surrounding him.

He finds the energy somewhere in him to push himself upright, shielding his eyes with his hand, trying to figure out what’s going on. 

The light… the light is coming from Stiles’ body.

It’s the strangest thing Derek’s ever seen, and he can’t do anything but watch Stiles carefully, because he doesn’t know what’s going on.

When Stiles’ body begins to float, the light surrounding him seeming to lift him from the ground, Derek nearly shouts in surprise, scrambling backwards. 

And then, as he watches, Stiles starts to change. 

The fur disappears, his face smooths out, the claws and fangs recede, leaving human teeth and nails and… 

And a human Stiles. Stiles is human. 

He comes to rest next to Derek a second later, his wounds seemingly healed as well, and Derek doesn’t say anything.

And then Stiles coughs and shakes his head and he’s looking up.

He’s gorgeous, Derek thinks, unable to keep from staring.

“Holy mother of god,” Stiles mutters, looking down at his hands. 

Oh, and he’s entirely naked as well. 

As is Derek. 

Neither of them mention it, a little too shocked to really care. 

“I’m human again. It’s broken. I.. Derek, you? Did you?” Stiles laughs a little hysterically, gathering Derek into a hug and pressing his face into Derek’s neck. “Thank you.”

“I… I broke the curse? I mean I… yeah. I think I… I mean I might…” Derek fumbles for his words, wincing at the way he sounds, and Stiles brings a finger to press against Derek’s lips. 

“Shh. As much as I’m loving the awkward naked conversations? We can wait until we’re fully clothed again. Let’s go check on the others.”

Stiles laces his fingers with Derek’s and drags him back toward the stairs, and down to the entrance hall. He doesn’t ask about Kate. Derek doesn’t offer the information. Later.

Downstairs, Laura and Cora have redressed, though their cloaks have gone towards covering a man and woman who are too wrapped up in each other to notice anyone else. There’s an older woman fussing over a younger man and two women each checking that the other is okay, and strangely enough, the four of them are fully clothed. Derek grabs the pants he discarded earlier. Stiles doesn’t seem to care, But Derek tosses him the tunic he’d been wearing earlier anyway. It’s enough. 

The man and the woman in his sisters’ cloaks finally approach, both smiling widely, and wrap Stiles in a hug. 

The man smiles at Derek next. “Its nice to meet you, Derek,” he says quietly, “I’m Scott. This is what I look like when I’m not an animal.” He laughs softly and Stiles grabs him into a hug again. 

Stiles whispers, barely loud enough for Derek to hear. “He broke the curse. Scotty. He broke the curse. He…” Stiles doesn’t get to finish. The woman Derek is assuming is Malia is crashing into Stiles, hugging him. 

“Congratulations, Stiles,” she smiles happily, reintroducing herself to Derek after. 

There’s a lot of reintroductions for Derek after that, first introductions for Laura and Cora, Scott’s mother looking after injuries that won’t heal on their own. 

Stiles doesn’t take his hand out of Derek’s the whole time. 

The castle looks brighter around them, and the bodies that were scattered around the entrance hall, a gruesome scene, have disappeared. Derek chalks it up to the magic that healed Stiles and tries not to think any harder about it. 

He feels like he’s about to drop from exhaustion, but the magic that healed Stiles has apparently given him an adrenaline rush, because he seems perfectly fine, even supporting Derek’s weight a little as he sags. 

“Why don’t we set your sisters up in a couple rooms and get you some rest, huh? You seem tired,” Stiles says, his voice soft in a way that reminds Derek of the way Scott talks to Malia. Derek nods, and Stiles leans up on his toes, pressing a quick, chaste kiss to Derek’s cheek. Derek blushes and raises his eyebrows, looking at Stiles in surprise. Stiles just smiles back. “Thank you, Derek.”

They have a lot to deal with in the morning, but all things considered, Derek thinks they’re good. 

Things are good.


End file.
